Divine Dines - The Cock and Coxcomb, Consett

How many times have you heard some silly arse saying "this is the best restaurant" or even "this is the greatest meal"? Fools of the mouth, fools of the head. Beware! holds that before one can comment on whether this or that restaurant is the best, one has to have experienced all competitors. As William Hartnell opined, "in order to conquer the Earth, you must first consume all living matter!" Welcome to our new comprehensive consumables column, starting in the auspicious surroundings of ex-steel town and notorious shell company hub, Consett, with the ever agreeable tones of garrulous, gorse-chinned one-time politician Barclay Minster.

Barclay Minster. He can talk.

The little woman and I arrived at the Cock and Coxcomb, poorly signposted just past the prole purgatory of B&M, on the south side of town towards dreary Delves, in quite a fug due to the worst traffic. Fools of the road. One wonders what attracts them. That's a rhetorical device; don't write in! (Though if you must, at least address it to Annick and baffle the silly girl.)

Craving some culinary comfort, first our weary eyes were assaulted with the sluttishly attention-seeking faux-Jacobean decor, saturated dripping wallpaper and bulbous accentuated stuck-on synthetic "wood". Although we could perhaps have expected traditional 17th Century meals and a madrigal in the ear, here the menu (early broadsheet-style; bonus points) showcased instead a regrettably modern take on peasant food, a protein-heavy, planet-light entomophagy approach of which tree-huggers would no doubt heartily approve. The link between these disparate eras? Insects, which have evidently graduated from mere passengers, uncomfortable side-effects of sloppy storage and poor hygiene to becoming, unconscionably, the star attraction.

WEEKDAY MENU [abridged]:

Soupcon of soup served in a snail shell

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Roast crickets nestling in woodlouse granola

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Termite mound crumble

DRINKS:
Canal Kombucha

Now, you know me, especially if you've paid attention to my wireless communications on LBC. I'm a rigorous traditionalist and firm believer in the upholding of solid British values. Like my ancestors in the proud Minster lineage, I should be happy if you gave me a 12-bore and pointed me in the direction of the nearest lion. Out of the strong came forth sweetness, et cetera. Grazing antelopes, rampaging wildebeest? Cannon fodder, dinnertime for Barclay. Insects? You get the servants to shoo them away. Insects, I ask you?! Why don't you just serve up socialists and have done with it?

I am nothing if not a man of my word, though, so insects it would be. We chose identical meals at my behest to ensure that neither of us wimped out for the easy option of recognisable food; and so garcon duly brought us the starters, tiny pools of unspecified consommé ladled into snail shells of the most inconvenient dimensions. Imported from the French perhaps? With no cutlery provided, I found this impossible to sip without making a dreadful mess - some went up my nose, some found its way through the dense slalom of my beard and down onto my tie where it remains despite furtive licking. (The little woman suggested this is the most tongue action they've witnessed from my part in a decade. Rank impertinence.)

Before our mains arrived, we knocked back a little of the house special, Canal Kombucha. This had apparently been fermenting for a fortnight and tasted akin to apple cider vinegar, if you're being charitable, with sweaty undertones. This mixture of sharp and sour blew any snail remnant clean away, which perhaps is the kindest compliment to pay it. I imagine it would work wonders on the local drains.

Onto the main course then. The late lamented myopic colonist Buddy Holly famously named his rock and roll band The Crickets after hearing the persistent chirruping noises the insects made around his garage. I am given to understand that our friends in the East Asian fringes regularly chomp heartily on roast crickets that sizzle rather than chirrup, served up by street vendors. This is what we ate, and you can fold your smug expression away and tuck it back into your breast pocket. Needless to say, these vaguely bacon-tasting insects did not roll my rocks, but the legs and antennae did provide a persistent presence around my molars. Remember to pack a toothpick. These crispy creepy-crawlies came on a toasted granola base which would be familiar to any health-freak hippie, but with the minor addition of pre-boiled oniscus asellus, or your common British woodlouse. These, I found, added a shrimp-like frisson that almost rescued the course. I daresay the next time I have escaped for an idle hour in the shed, I will regard my woodlice companions in quite a new light; and they'd do well to return the compliment.

Finally, garcon having brought us the house water (which apparently was just that, and not cat drool or badger bile), we moved wearily to the "dessert"; a traditional summer fruit crumble. What could go wrong? Only its utter defilement not only by the addition of bulbous boiled termites, but also by an architectural monstrosity, the crumble topping having been stacked up supposedly to resemble a miniature of a typical mound as found in North Africa, except of course that crumble mix doesn't stack up as well; and on tucking in it went everywhere, liberally dusting the knees of my slacks.

Gentlemen, I need not regale you at this juncture with the tortured process this meal made through my shuddering system as I got back behind the wheel of my Jaguar. God knows what the little woman thought of it. I leave you with this warning. At last I can say I have experienced true decadence. A restaurant - an English restaurant! - with the ability to serve up the finest venison and foie gras, yet it chooses to offer insects, in the 21st Century. I have visions of the morally-crumbling Roman Empire, too addled to save itself from the gathering savages. Surely we are tumbling gut-first into the end times and Consett is on the front line. Luckily I have a stoutly-provisioned shed. Woodlice and all.

Barclay Minster is on 'Question Time' every week.